As Grey got ready for the new day, most of the Freelancers had already had breakfast and had gone out for a mission aside from Oliver and Cedric. Cedric was finishing up some cereal while Oliver was chilling on the couch. He was casually munching on a sandwich while playing video games. Once Cedric was done eating, he went over to Oliver.

"Looks like it's your turn today, bud. Sure you're up for it?" asked Cedric.

"Of course I do," said Oliver w/ a lazy wink and small smile w/ his tongue sticking out a bit, "From what I've seen of him, he doesn't seem too bad."

"Alright, I'm just checking," said Cedric as he walked over his and Grey's room.

Grey finally stepped into the room (not before sharing an awkward blush w/ Cedric, of course).

"Heya, buddy. It's my turn to spend time w/ you, so come on over here and sit on this couch w/ me," said Oliver as he waved Grey over to him.

Grey went over to the couch. The couch had two weirdly-shaped black things on the couch. On the TV, there was a weird, colorful image on the screen. There was also an odd, strangely pleasing sound coming from the TV as well. But what surprised Grey the most was, oddly enough, Oliver. Grey had seen Oliver before, of course, but he had never really looked at him more closely. When viewed closely, Oliver was large, had a bit of a slimy-looking texture to him, and he was, to put it kind of bluntly, rather thickly fat. On his large belly, there was a small bag of some sort. Oliver patted the space next to him. Grey, shaking himself out of his shock, took this as a sign to sit and he did just that.

"Wait here, I'll get you something for breakfast," said Oliver as he lowered himself off of the couch.

Grey had to do a double-take. Oliver didn't have legs. He had a big, fat mass! Instead of walking, he was sliding forward towards the kitchen. Grey couldn't help but gape as Oliver slid over to the kitchen, got some things from a door attached to the wall, and slid back to the couch. In Oliver's arms, he had four weird things that had different colors.

"This might not be a proper breakfast, but eh, whatever."

Oliver then noticed Grey's astonishment.

"What?"

<i>If you don't mind me asking, where are your legs?</i> Grey wrote.

Oliver cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I never had legs. I've always just had my tail for movement," said Oliver.

<i>Oh. Are you going to hit me for asking that?</i> Grey asked.

Oliver, w/ a surprised look, said, "Oh, hell nah. I'm too chill for that. On a less serious note, here's your "breakfast."

He handed two of the weird things he was holding to Grey. On one, it said "Doritos Cool Ranch." On the other, it said "Lays Salt & Vinegar." Grey looked them in confusion.

Oliver, noticing his confusion, said, "What, have you never seen a bag of chips before?"

Oliver then started to laugh a bit. Grey just looked at him, still confused. Oliver then noticed Grey's expression.

"You're not joking? (Grey's expression stayed the same) Oh my fuck, you're actually serious. ... Excuse me, I need a moment."

Oliver then got off the couch again and quickly slid over towards the hall. After about 5 minutes, he came back and climbed back onto the couch.

"Now that I'm done soul searching and rethinking everything I've ever known, let me teach you about chips (I can't believe I'm fucking doing this). They're basically just small food bits that are tasty and holy."

<i>How do you open these?</i>

Oliver inhaled deeply after reading this.

"Here give me one," said Oliver. Grey gave one to him. "You do this."

Oliver then pulled the top part of the chip bag apart and it opened.

"Here."

Grey looked inside. There were circular bits of food that were yellowish. Grey pulled one out, inspected it for a bit, and then tried it. The flavor was a bit strong and strange, but Grey, overall, liked it. After a couple of minutes, he finished both bags (the second was pretty good, but it definitely wasn't as good as the first).

"Welp, seeing as you're done w/ your food, let's get on w/ on our day. (This should be good.)," said Oliver.













...







For the rest of the day, Oliver introduced Grey to the glorious, gorgeous world of video games. The game that Oliver had been playing was known as Megaman ZX Advent. In the game, Grey assumed the role of a character named Grey (he thought that that was strange) who could switch between different forms as you progress. Grey could NOT make head or tails of what he had to do w/ the game at all and Oliver had a bit of trouble teaching him but after a while, Grey got the hang of it. After playing through ZX Advent, Oliver then switched to another game called Megaman X5. The gameplay (as Oliver referred to it) was quite different, and while it took a while to get used to, Grey didn't have as trouble here (even if the game was harder). For lunch, Oliver ordered some to come to the house. It was the same thing that Grey had had for dinner on the first day he came here (it was even better the second time). After X5, Oliver then put in a game that was completely different from the others called Sonic Mania. Grey had no idea what the five characters were and when he asked Oliver who he should choose, Oliver simply said that Grey should choose his character. Grey, thinking hard about his choice, eventually the blue character (who Oliver said was Sonic) because Sonic was blue and Grey chose him because he was thinking of Cedric. The game was very strange and Oliver had to teach him a LOT about it (especially when Grey got to Encore Mode ;)) Time flew by as Grey and Oliver had a good time playing these games together (Grey actually enjoyed playing them even if he wasn't that into playing them). Eventually, every Freelancer that had left for the mission (except for Cedric and Benjamin, who was laying in bed, contemplating his existence the whole time) walked in. Some were a bit disheveled, others were fine but indifferent.

"How'd it go?" Oliver asked.

"It was average for me. I don't about the others, it was a total breeze for someone as skilled as I!" said Ash w/ a cocky expression.

"Bitch, you had as a hard time w/ this as the rest of us," said Cherry, shoving him aside as she walked to her room w/ Vicky in tow.

"The nerve of that demoness..." muttered Ash.

"So how's is it going for you? I bet you two had a lot of super-duper fun together," said Pete, giggling.

Oliver turned to Pete w/ a miffed expression.

"You have three seconds to walk away before I deck the shit out of you, you son of a bitch," he replied acidly.

"My my, what a temper," said Pete as he walked off w/ a miffed expression of his own.

<i>Why were you so rude to Pete?</i> asked Grey, not out of concern for Pete, but out of curiosity.

"I don't what it is, but there's always been something about him that's made me hate his fucking guts and it makes me want to punch him so damn hard," Oliver replied angrily.

Grey didn't know how to respond to that. While he wasn't inclined to hit Pete, at the same time, he couldn't say that he wished the best for him either.

"Oh shit, we were so caught up in our activity that I didn't notice it was almost dinnertime!" said Oliver as he lowered himself from the couch.

"C'mon Grey. We still have to have our fight."

Grey got up and followed Oliver (whom he noticed took up a lot of space while he "stood"). They eventually reached the other room on the left side of the hall.

"Here's the room I share w/ Ash's stuck-up ass. All you need to do is survive my attacks a couple of minutes and you'll be good to go. As is usually the case w/ me, I won't be trying that hard anyway."

They walked into the room and immediately went to Oliver's side. On this side, there were all sorts of objects everywhere and a lot of different paper things on the walls. There were clothes left strewn here and there as well as several boxes (Oliver had they were called 'consoles') lying around as well. Oliver then turned to Grey, his eyes now glowing a dark purple. He then made a giant dark purple notebook appear underneath him.

<i>You have a notebook too?</i> Grey wrote to Oliver.

"Of course I do. It's my special weapon. Ready?"

Grey nodded.

"Good. Let's start this shit."

FIGHT START!

(Song: Checker Dance from Deltarune)

Oliver dove towards Grey. Grey easily avoided it as it wasn't going that fast. Three notebooks then appeared, opened, and then shut hard. The force from these hit Grey, but they only stunned him a bit and took his health down to 95%.

These notebooks then flew towards Grey, but they weren't that fast so Grey easily jumped over them. Oliver then jumped off his notebook and made it move slowly over to Grey, who promptly ducked. When the notebook hit the wall, it made a small explosion that Grey got caught in. It took his health down to 84%.

"Bruh, you've got to learn to dash after ducking sometimes," said Oliver as his eyes became yellow again, "At any rate though, I'm too lazy to keep this fight going. I thought this might be sort of fun, but I'm just not feeling it."

VICTORY (BY DEFAULT)!

Grey got up and looked at him, confused.

"What?" asked Oliver.

<i>I'm sorry, but considering how my other meetings went, I didn't think the battle in this one would be cut so short.</i>

"Eh, as I said, I'm not really feeling it. C'mon, let's go eat dinner."

They went out into the hall once more.

"Before we go to eat, I just want you to know that if I was taking our fight seriously, it would've been a lot more difficult in comparison," said Oliver.

<i>What do you mean?</i> asked Grey.

"I won't say more about it. Let's just go have dinner."

When they went to the eating table, everyone was there, eating dinner. Cedric, upon noticing Grey and Oliver enter, beckoned Grey over w/ a smile. Grey, as per usual, got flustered at this. Oliver, noticing this, smiled.

"Go on, little buddy. I won't keep you from your husbando any longer," whispered Oliver.

Grey looked at him, confused, and still flustered.

"Go on."

Grey then went over to Cedric's side quickly. In front of him was some soup, except it was red this time. When Grey tasted it, it tasted different from the other soup he'd had, but it was good nonetheless.

"So, how'd it go w/ the living beanbag otherwise known as Oliver?" asked Cedric, who was also eating a sandwich.

<i>It was a pretty pleasant experience. I truly enjoyed it,</i> wrote Grey w/ an awkward smile.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"Nice to see someone enjoys the company of that oversized garden slug," said Vicky nasily as she sipped something from a cup.

Oliver just smiled and did a strange gesture where he held up his fists w/ the middle fingers up. Vicky just stuck out her ethereal tongue out at him.

<i>What's that gesture that Oliver's doing?</i> Grey asked Cedric.

"Um, that is not something you should be concerned w/. It's a very rude thing to fucking do," he replied.

"What is?" asked Pete, who was eating some ice cream.

"Oh, I think he means this little thing!" said Cherry as she stuck up a middle finger while snickering.

Cedric sighed.

<i>Are you going to hit me for asking a question that's so clearly forbidden?</i> asked Grey.

Cedric read this and fixed Grey w/ a face of disbelief.

<i>Is this adorably sexy bastard serious right now?</i> Cedric thought.

Cedric stayed silent.

<i>Cedric?</i> Grey asked.

No response.

<i>Cedric, are you mad at me?</i> Grey asked.

Again, no response.

<i>Oh God, he's getting ready to beat me. I shouldn't have asked such a stupid question!</i> thought Grey.









...





After Grey got ready for bed, he paused outside of his and Cedric's room door and took a deep breath.

<i>Well, let's get this over w/. We both know I deserve what comes up,</i> Grey thought.

He opened the door. Cedric was just standing there w/ his arms crossed and a serious expression. Grey braced himself as Cedric advanced towards him. Cedric paused for a bit and then spread his arms out.

<i>Here it comes...</i> Grey thought as he braced himself further.

But Cedric didn't strike Grey. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Grey and pulled him into a great, big, gentle bearhug. Grey was both incredibly confused and in absolute HEAVEN at that moment. Cedric felt so firm yet so soft, so strong yet ever so gentle, so strange yet so RIGHT. Grey adored this hug so much. He also noticed that Cedric had a particular scent to him. He didn't know how to describe this scent except that it was strong and Grey couldn't help but start huffing it a bit.

"Grey," Cedric said softly in his ear, "Do not EVER assume I would strike you under any circumstance. I would rather break my hand off than think of doing that. I care about you too much to do something like that."

Cedric then pulled himself away (much to Grey's disappointment) and climbed into his bed.

"G'night," he said as he turned his back to Grey.

Grey, feeling hot and bothered after that hug (both of his lower regions felt very weird too), turned the lights off, and climbed into bed. He would have a hard time sleeping this night as he couldn't help but think Cedric's hug as he tossed and turned, desperately trying to catch some sleep and forget the whole ordeal.